HELENA -- As the point guard, Avery Carlson facilitates the offense for Montana Tech's women's basketball team. 

Off the court, Carlson facilitates a busy schedule of school, basketball, and service. 

Carlson's excellence in all those areas made her the perfect choice for the Frontier Conference's Emil S. Liston Scholarship Award nomination, which the league office announced Tuesday afternoon. 

Carlson, a rising senior from Havre, started every game of the 2025-26 championship season for the Oredigger women's basketball team, all while maintaining a perfect 4.0 grade-point average in biological sciences, and serving her university as a lab and research assistant and her community has a healthcare provider. 

The conference's nomination makes Carlson eligible for the NAIA's national Emil S. Liston Award, which recognizes two outstanding junior basketball student-athletes — one female and one male — for their athletic and academic achievements. 

Carlson averaged 5.3 points, 3.8 rebounds, and 1.7 assists for the Orediggers last season, starting all 31 games and leading Montana Tech to its first Frontier Conference tournament title since 1983 and the program's first-ever NAIA national tournament victory. The Orediggers finished the year 26-5. 

She assists in Montana Tech's chemistry labs, and she has written successfully funded research proposals while still an undergraduate. She presented her findings on high-temperature carbon formation and removal on H-SOFC anode materials at the 2025 Montana Tech SURF Symposium. Also active in the community, Carlson has worked in healthcare both in her hometown of Havre and in Butte, and she has volunteered in local schools, food banks, and at the Belmont Senior Center. 

Carlson plans to attend medical school after Montana Tech and hopes to make a career as a rural healthcare provider in Montana. 

The Emil S. Liston Scholarship Award, named in honor of the NAIA's first executive secretary and the prime mover behind the men's basketball tournament, recognizes one junior men's and one junior women's basketball student-athlete who has shown high athletic and academic achievement.  The winners will be announced on NAIA Awards Day, September 15.

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